Lamentations
by Auroran Flash
Summary: Oh, I've done it too. We all know we're vultures.


He was tired. Tired of the searing pain that left him motionless on the open floor of the stone platform with the ghosts of rats and insects scurrying to and fro beside him; tired of the unidentifiable noises in the distance which caused his ever-alert eyes to dart up, only to gaze into pitch blackness and receive no answer to sate his curiosity; tired of the souls that wandered through this desolate place, leaving no trace of themselves but for their mournful babble, no more than a whisper of the wind to human ears.

His ears, however, were not, and his increased senses due to the mako enhancements fed to his body since he was only an infant served to bleaken the situation. His body lay broken on the cool gray surface, his own characteristically illuminant blood spattered here and there. The pain was acute, not dismissible as it had been in life -- for surely, he was dead, yet very much alive, motionless, yet animated. One thing he was for certain, and he knew this through and through: he was cursed.

He was not alone in this place, for if he had been, his punishment after death would have been a merciful one. Certainly he had slain too many and caused such anxiety in the hearts of all and in the heart of the Planet itself that solitude would be too gentle a punishment, yet it seemed at first that he was the only inhabitant of the dreary place. His own company had always been his favourite. Through his childhood, he had endured many the prodding scientist, seeking to discover what powers lie behind his ethereal green eyes or beneath creamy alabaster skin. They found strength, wit, a patient temperament; all things contributing to the image of a 'perfect child'. Doted on and needlessly fussed over, he had found solace in solitude. At an older age, when working, he found he had the mental prowess of ten men and could easily accomplish nearly any task without the bumble and miscommunications brought by several people gathered to do the same thing. It was never a surprise when he had to be ordered to attend social affairs for his company, simply because the clatter of so many people doing so little so very loudly was less than appealing to his reserved nature. 

It was also never a surprise that wherever he went, rumours sprung up about his life of secrecy, when his actions could simply be summed up as modesty and introversion. Occasionally, foul rumours would spread about his private lovers being slain to keep silent about the inner workings of his "circle of friends", whose names were never released, but nevertheless were a feared group of individuals. These made him laugh behind closed doors, for if any of these people had ever spoken to him or any of his true small, strange group of friends, they would indeed come to some shockingly tame conclusions about him. It was more exciting this way, and indeed more entertaining, especially when rumours about his mental health arose, when at the time he had been perfectly sane.

But nothing so trivial happened down here. The spirits he encountered were malicious and ripped at his flesh without leaving a wound. The only blood spilt here was that which had stained the ground upon his actual slaying, years past, by a man named Cloud Strife. Now, only dry pain without conclusion ebbed away at his consciousness, pitching him into a series of delusions involving a time when this agony was not a part of his life, when time had meaning and the air smelled not so rank.

The Great General was not one to fall under pain alone. Surely, he had suffered a great deal in his days as a SOLDIER, fighting tooth and nail with the stubborn Wutaiians until their last breath was drawn and he could turn his back on them without fear that their shame would resurrect them from the dead for one last strike to end his luck for good. But this pain was not only of the physical, it was a mental execration which plagued him most. 

The spirits who wandered here seemed otherworldly. They stalked through the dark, where he could hear the distant screams of other prisoners of the afterlife who had no doubt served some wretched purpose, just as he had, in a life long past. The spirits' long, greedy fingers explored his face, cupped his chin, ventured across his skin as his listless body repressed a shudder. Their noxious breath forced a recoil, despite the wracking agony inside of him each time he resisted. They would giggle, watching him closely with their gibbous, glazed eyes. They seemed to admire him, stroking his scarred, dirty flesh as if it were new, and indeed for a moment it glowed with the magical touch of these hideous creatures, but as their hands recoiled, his form became that of an old corpse once again.

For their pleasure, his existence remained. Their touch, violating his body, was enough to tear disgust from him, though in life it would have been so far from his character to grow irate so easily. Even though the feelings brewed, he could not form the words to communicate them. His voice had long since betrayed him, and would often be replaced by an alien voice with alien words - and how they said the most foul of things, things he would have never considered uttering even in the privacy of his own company in life. Surely they knew how they were perverting him? But alas, they mulled about their business -- it was a business, it seemed -- for a moment gifting him with the beauty of life once again, letting that nectar be within taste, and then tainting it with something rancid.  
  
The mental chagrin was by far the worst. The images they forced into his mind as they tarnished his personality for short times were enough to make an old man blush. He'd seen many awful things in my life, caused many of them with his own hands, but the things these youthful spirits had him doing in their nightmare visions were too horrible to speak of. His mind thrashed in recollection of past episodes, where the souls of other people -- some he had known, some he had not -- were thrust into the nightmares given to him by these spirits. Exuberant sex proceeded. And more. And more -- until his body tempted him to ignore the vicious pain and bang his head against a conveniently placed sharp rock for the mercy of unconsciousness. What's worse, the spirits narrated these bouts of sex, and most times it was a choppy, faulty discription of the happenings, with fatal discrepancies in the storytelling. They were nothing more than puppets, dancing along to the sour melody they wreathed us in with their words -- they were miserable, forced to mouth words of love when not even each other's momentary, if not superficial company, could comfort one another's aches. 

He was regularly paired with an assortment of characters; men, women, animals -- more often men, it seemed. He was flung into bondage situations, ménage à trois, the frightful involvement of actual swords in foreplay, and complete and utter disregard for the limits of certain anatomical functions. He was a marionette on the strings of Fate, dancing and twisting this way and that as the shadows of Hell wished while shame wreathed his being. Shame - of all things. Honor had always been his base. The honor of a general in war times, the honor carried by the prince as he wandered his Planet. All of these things, maliciously forgotten, violently ignored.

He wished for death, only death. If only these spirits would leave him be, if only Fate would be so kind as to sentence him to a less grueling punishment!

But here he remained, alone, yet not alone, dead, yet not dead, eternal, yet shamed to oblivion, existing solely through these things... these spirits.

He believed them to be called 'fangirls'. 


End file.
